


Friendship and love

by Rogercat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ancestors, Ancient History, Anglo-Saxon, Bullying, Childbirth, Children of Characters, Christianity, Danger, England (Country), F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Hogwarts Founders Era, Illnesses, Magical Artifacts, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Original Character(s), Mystery, Newborn Children, Original Character(s), Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Past Violence, Pregnancy, Protective Siblings, School Uniforms, Siblings, Squibs, The Golden Trio, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2019-10-02 01:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat
Summary: The Golden Trio starts their Fifth year at Hogwarts, but things are not easy when Harry have no proof of that Voldemort is back and things gets worse when adolescence and time travel are thrown together. Trapped in the past with their detested bully Draco, will they find a way to get back to their own time without altering the past too much?





	1. Prologue: History of the Slytherin family

**Author's Note:**

> Many of the Original Characters mentioned in this story comes from my own headcanons about the Slytherin family and what might have happened to make the Slytherin family name die out 
> 
> I also plan to try showing how things and life really was in the Founders time, which with Hogwarts opening in 993 A.D according to the HP canon, would have been in the Anglo-Saxon period of British history

_ From two of the History books about the Magic in Great Britain and Magical family trees, owned by Hermione Jean Granger in 1994 _

  
  
  


Salazar Slytherin was the last Lord of famous Pure-blood House of Slytherin and later one of the four Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Born in 962 A.D, he was said to be the result of a final attempt to have a male Heir, with his parents being almost too old to have children anymore. From an early age, he showed signs of having a very strong magic rarely seen in the Wizarding World at the time. Salazar was taught by the best and most respectable tutors in magic his parents could afford, and many were the Families who wanted to wed a daughter to the young Slytherin Heir once he had came of age. 

 

In the 10th century, it was common practice in the Wizarding World to have the new generations, especially those of Pure-Blood families, marry early in life as magic, in all its glory and power, still was not a guarantee of survival to adulthood. As people normally entered adolescence very late by later time's standards, often in their past the age of fifteen, it became common to have the arranged marriages take place when both partners was seventeen years.

 

Marrying for love was seen as a mix of luxury and at the same time dangerous. Love was something that belonged inside a marriage, and having an unwed, lovestruck Heir or Heiress marry someone by following their own heart was often the start of a foolish event which could lead to a unhappy life once the first sparks of romance had faded. 

 

In late summer 979 A.D, by the age of 17, Salazar Slytherin married his orphaned first-cousin Cearo who was just a few months younger than him. Both of them were a rarity in the Wizarding World by never having been betrothed to someone else before their marriage, but many later scholars would share the theory that it simply had been difficult to choose two good future spouses for Salazar and Cearo, and that it plainly seemed to be a better match between the two first-cousins as they were the only two Slytherin Heirs in their generation, both being an only child for different reasons, though there is old rumours that both Salazar and Cearo had been blessed with older siblings long before their respective birth, yet all those brothers and sisters had either been stillborn or died at a young age

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

Lady Cearo Slytherin died of illness in 993 A.D. at the age of 31 years. During her 14 years long marriage to Lord Salazar Slytherin, her first-cousin by their fathers who were brothers, she is mentioned to have been with child twice. The first time, it was a stillbirth of unknown gender, yet most historical evidence suggests that it was a girl. The other birth, happening little over two years later, resulted in the birth of twins: Rinc, the heir to the Slytherin family, and his younger sister Sunniva. It is said that lady Cearo was harmed greatly in the birth, nearly costing her life to give her Lord and husband his children. She was never pregnant again because of her health becoming frail after the birth, leaving her only two children as legacy to history at her death when they were eleven years old. Lord Salazar Slytherin, being very close to his beloved cousin-wife all her life, was held in deep grief over her death and never remarried over the following seven years, even if history proved that it should have been a wise move to do so.

 

That same year, in September, he became one of the four Founders of Hogwarts and his 11-year-old twin children were two of the first students there. From the start, it soon were clear that the Founders had different views on which students that would be allowed to be schooled at Hogwarts. Yet despite that he was suspicious of Muggle-born students, Salazar managed to keep peace with his friends, if a problematic one thanks to differences in personality and his own fear that magic-fearing Muggles would find out about Hogwarts somehow.  

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

In the year 1000 A.D, the so called  _ Great Tragedy of the Slytherin family _ happened: It all started with that Salazar's twin children Rinc and Sunniva was almost 18 years old this year and were set to marry a daughter from the House of Peverell and an Heir from the rather fresh House of Gaunt once all four youngsters had finished their schooling at Hogwarts. Now, the Peverell family was already known in the Pure-blood ranks, but the House of Gaunt had been created only two generations before, so for many of the families, it was a surprise that Salazar allowed his daughter to be betrothed to a such family. The reason of this choice have never been found. 

 

However, Fate had different plans. The mystery behind lord Rinc's death is still unknown even today, but it is said that he and his father came into serious conflict with each other over a magical attack on a Muggle village at the Scottish border to England and that lord Salazar killed his only son in a sudden fit of rage, only coming to his senses when it was too late. 

 

As mentioned above, Rinc died aged just seventeen years, and was the last officially known male Slytherin as Salazar himself never had remarried after the death of his wife. Nor had the young Heir of Slytherin gotten married and there is no evidence that neither father or son had illegitimate children to keep the family name remain in a male line. The lady Sunniva, Salazar's daughter, was hurried married only the very day before the duel as she and her eventual Gaunt husband had foolishly acted in a way that was only allowed for married couples at the time and made her pregnant before the marriage, forcing the two families to speed up the wedding before it became visible for everyone to see what the bride and groom had done.

 

No one really knows what happened after the fatal duel between father and son. Some says that Salazar went mad over his actions when he realized what had happened, killing himself in a desperate act of remorse and guilt over causing the death of his own Heir. Others say that he requested to be executed by Godric Gryffindor personally, for the crime of ending his direct male line of possible descendants, pleading himself guilty and viewing himself undeserved of pardon. His place of death and tomb is unknown, as he was not buried in his ancestral home together with his son and wife.    

 

As the only remaining Slytherin family member left alive, Sunniva would not be spared from tragedy herself. No, her fate turned out to die in childbirth on 31 December 1000 A.D after giving birth to a single son, her cause of death rumored to be internal bleeding because of a difficult birth. Her son would survive to adulthood, and father a Pure-blood family name which would live on for the coming centuries. 

  
  



	2. Movies in the Muggle world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Sirius spend some time together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is meant to happen in the HP book version, so please try to do not imagine the characters and their appearance from the movies, though I intend to draw some inspiration from lovely fanarts and make Hermione have some kind of African ancestry which gives her a little darker skin than Harry and Ron, which will be used as a smaller culture shock during the time travel

13 August in the summer 1995, London, 12 Grimmauld Place:  

 

Harry could still not fully believe that he had managed to be free of the changes of illegal magic during the disciplinary hearing. Yes, he tried to avoid using magic outside Hogwarts during the summer holidays because he actually had checked out what meant as underage magic after the event with uncle Vernon's sister Marge back in 1993, but really, did the Ministry of Magic expect him to simply allow Dudley and himself to have their souls sucked out by Dementors?

 

“They once had to deal with Voldemort and his reign of terror for eleven years where many innocent people of both Muggle and magical origins was killed, it is hard to really blame them for not wanting him to be back. On the other hand, I think it will end up **_blackfire hard_ **on them if they keep deny his return and not warning people,” Sirius said in a voice which did not really hide his own grief over the lives that had been lost in the First Wizarding War. Harry and his godfather was currently sitting at the wooden table in the kitchen, enjoying some nice tea together, taking a chance to talk with each other.

 

“I just wish that they could stop being such idiots about it,” Harry muttered, drinking some more of the tea while Sirius looked.

 

“Would you like to do something in the Muggle part of London, Harry? I think you need something else to do than being in here and I would love to get outside for a bit.”

 

The suggestion was so unexpected that Harry had to stare at Sirius.

 

“Really!? But...you could still be recognized...there was reports of you on the television and all…”  

 

“I have a secret ability to escape, remember?” Sirius reminded with a smile, and for a moment some of his former handsomeness returned to his face. Then it clicked for Harry; Sirius meant his Animagus form as a black dog. No one would raise a eye of a teenager walking his “family dog” on the streets of London, especially not in summer holidays.

  


Half a hour later, when Ginny entered the kitchen to ask Harry and Sirius if they could help with the cleaning upstairs, there was only a quickly-written letter on the table, and the handwriting spoke of a hand which had not been writing many letters for a longer period of the past:

 

 _Harry and I am out in Muggle London for some bonding time as godfather and godson. We need to make up for twelve lost years of our relationship. I will be using my Animagus form to avoid discovery. See you later this evening, when we return, Sirius._  

 

For a moment, Ginny wondered if she should tell her mother about this, then thought of how Molly would react and instead chose to find Lupin, who would likely understand a little better why Harry and Sirius had left without a word as they did.

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

It felt very strange to be out in London, only the two of them, but Harry had every intention to enjoy the day with Sirius. They had chosen Hyde park for a start, to enjoy the feeling of being outdoors despite being in the capital.

 

“So...what do you want to do, Harry? It is nice weather, but I am not fully sure of what a young man in your age would want to do,” Sirius wondered as they walked out from the park. Looking around, Harry saw a poster beside the front door to a cinema, which read;

 

**_Star Wars movies marathon, this weekend_ **

 

“Shall we test this? A marathon is when they show all the movies in a serie, after each other.”

 

Sirius looked at the poster with a rather interested look in his eyes.

 

“Star Wars? I remember Lily and some of her fellow Muggle-born students speaking about that movie when we returned to Hogwarts for our seventh year in 1977-78. She had a lot of fun teasing James about that he wanted to know what all that fuss was about whatever they spoke of whatever Luke Skywalker or Han Solo was the coolest and tried to make her reveal the secret, because he mistook them for possible Muggle rivals about her. Sadly, because of the war against Voldemort, we never got to see it with her when we had left Hogwarts.”

 

Somehow, that made Harry feel like he was learning yet another thing about his parents, a little closer to how they had been in character. And yet, the mental image of James trying to challenge two fictional people to a magical duel was pretty funny.

 

“Dad really believed them to be real people?”

 

“Yes. It is not only the Pure-blood families that can be a bit behind popular culture, out of ignorance or arrogance. That misunderstanding did cost James a early Christmas gift for Lily, he had to give her something as punishment unless she broke up with him after their first date,” Sirius confirmed with a fond smile of the memories.

 

After buying two tickets for the marathon, they went to chose popcorn and soft drinks, then searched for their seats.

  


As they watched the “A New Hope”, Harry noticed something about his godfather; Sirius made sure to only eat his share of the popcorn during the really noisy part, likely to not told off for eating and disturb the mood for the other cinema visitors.

 

“He is very focused on the movie...is this the first time he have seen a movie in a cinema like this?”

 

Again Harry was reminded of how long Sirius had been absent from his life, and wondered how his life could have been with Sirius as his caretaker instead of his magic-hating aunt and uncle. Then, a careful poke into his arm, and Sirius made a silent pointing against the large screen as reminder to why they was here in the first place.  

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

Once the Star Wars marathon was over, about seven hours later since there had been two breaks on half a hour between the movies, Harry and Sirius went to find something to eat. They had brought some sandwiches to eat in the second break before watching Return of the Jedi, but now they wanted some real food before returning back to 12 Grimmauld Place.

 

“Had he not been a fictional character, Darth Vader would be almost perfect as a Death Eater following Voldemort. In terms of being scary, respect giving and ruthless,” Sirius informed as they made a order of what that wanted on a outdoor seating, chosen so they could enjoy the summer evening. Harry laughed slightly nervously, he felt that Darth Vader would be a far scarier enemy than Voldemort for Muggle-borns who had grown up with the Star Wars movies and therefore first would think that it was only some fan dressing up as Darth Vader before realizing that it was real.  

 

“It is rather odd to see you dressed in Muggle clothes,” Harry commented when he realized that there was something different about the clothes Sirius was wearing, denim jeans, t-shirt and a green summer jacket of light cotton with a hood he could pull over his head to shadow his face if needed. His hair was still long, but it had been cut to be around the length down to his shoulder blades and then set up in a ponytail to keep it out of his eyes.

 

“It is hard to not notice the difference in fashion between 1981 and 1993, when you are hiding in a animal form and sometimes need to return into a human to better read the newspapers if there was anything useful for me to know,” Sirius revealed as they enjoyed some fish and chips as dinner, with some extra salad on the side. They would pay for the food later by using the same Muggle money as for the cinema, money which professor McGonagall had left for the Order to use if there ever was errand needed to be done in the Muggle world.

 

“Aunt Petunia never really cared for fashion as far as I know, and uncle Vernon always mutter about that people can not dress in a proper style those days.”

 

“Well, Lily had some trouble keeping up with the Muggle fashion when we was at Hogwarts, but some of it was seen in the everyday clothing when we did not wear school uniforms.”

 

Sirius spoke of how the Muggle-born students at Hogwarts tended to show hints to what was the fashion among the non-magical population of Great Britain, and sometimes the half-blood students like Harry himself, if they were raised by the Muggle side of their family. For Harry, who had grown up with only having Dudley's old clothes to wear, it was almost embarrassing to admit to Sirius of how it had been to always have clothes that was four times bigger than himself and Petunia never bothering to at least sew them in so the oversized clothes did not hang off Harry's skinner body.

 

“Really...did not Eleanor teach Petunia anything of sewing clothes at home, or were your aunt just too lazy to do it with all the store-bought clothes which is for sale in the shops nowadays? I know that Lily did sew several of your baby clothing by herself, had brought a modern sewing machine and all…”

 

That caught Harry's attention.

 

“Eleanor? Is that my grandmother's name? Aunt Petunia never speaks of my maternal grandparents and I was never allowed to ask questions about my parents either. It was like they attempted to erase their existence all together, I didn't even know how similar I was to Dad or had Mum's eyes before I got all those photos in the photo album Hagrid gave me at the end of my first school year.”

 

Now it was Sirius turn to look shocked, stopping in the middle of eating a piece of his fried fish.  

 

“She have never told you about your grandparents? Of Eleanor and Anthony Evans?”

 

Harry shook on his head in response.

 

“Damn, it has to be that horrible car crash they died in, only weeks after that Lily and James had to go into hiding because of her pregnancy with you. Lily went into a massive shock when she learned that her parents had died the very day after her telling them that they would have not one, but two grandchildren the following summer, each baby born to one of their daughters…” Sirius explained in a grim voice, one hand shadowing his own eyes before he looked at Harry again. As for himself, Harry had lost some of his appetite after hearing Sirius tell of why he had never met his maternal grandmother or grandfather. So the claimed car crash had been real after all, only that it had never been his own parents as aunt Petunia had told him in childhood. Had the death of his grandparents been so horrible that it was too painful to speak of them at all?

 

Somewhere behind them, Big Ben stroke eight in the evening.

 

“We need to go home. Or Molly will throw a hissing fit at us both for vanishing despite that we did leave a note to tell where we had gone, even if it was not exactly.”

  


As they passed by British Museum, there was a few workers from the museum outside, having a small lottery just at the front entrance. If someone drew the right number, there was a price of free tickets to the newest exhibition.

 

“Shall we try?” Sirius suggested, and Harry nodded. It could never harm to try.

“A lottery ticket each, please,” Harry requested, handing the Muggle money as he had done all the day, with Sirius carefully confessing earlier that he had no idea which ones to use.

 

For whatever reason, with neither one even trying to cheat by using magic, Harry and Sirius ended up with a tie in the lottery winnings then it turned out that they both had a winning ticket. Their shared price was a total of six tickets to the newest exhibition.

 

“You can choose it to be family tickets or separate for each person, just tell at the pay desk before entering the exhibition.”

 

Well, Harry knew which persons he wanted to invite, Hermione and Ron had both said that they too wanted to get out of 12 Grimmauld Place for a little while outside shopping for new school supplies. As for the fourth ticket, maybe Ginny would like to come? Harry had seen her throw annoyed glaces towards her mother behind Mrs Weasley's back, so maybe she needed some time away as well?

 

“I will invite Remus, this is something I know he likes,” Sirius smiled, holding the two remaining tickets in one hand.   

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

Sirius had been right, Mrs Weasley gave them a loud scolding for vanishing from the house when they came back:

 

“ **I cannot believe the two of you to be so careless! Do you both even realize how dangerous it could be for Harry to be outside without more than one person to protect him!? What if you had been attacked in the open street, with the Death Eaters not caring for innocent Muggles being killed by a stray spell?** ”   

 

It seemed like she had read the note they had left behind that forenoon, but before Molly could say anything else, Sirius made a good reply by pointing out:

 

“ _And how many years did I miss to be with my godson while I was in prison? It is pretty hard to spend time with Harry if I would be locked up again._ ”

 

The small reminder of that Sirius actually was innocent, and would rather not return to Azkaban again, seemed to flatten some of her anger. Taking a chance to leave, Harry decided to tell the two youngest Weasley siblings and Hermione about the tickets. With some luck, they could get away to British Museum before it was time to return back to Hogwarts for their new school year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Given that Lily's and Petunia's parents had to be at least 18 years old in order to be able of marrying and having their daughters without being a result of teenage pregnancy or, I chose to make both of them born in 1939, so they would be 20 years old when Petunia is born in 1959 (she is mentioned to be born pre-1960 on the HP wiki) and 21 years the following year in 1960 when Lily was born. The idea of early parenthood across the generations will be a hint to something later in-story
> 
> 2) Related to the idea of Mr and Mrs Evans being born in the late 1930s, I chose the names Eleanor and Anthony from a list over the 200 most popular given names for babies born in that decade. I did not want the most popular names from back then, but rather something which was less popular and might stand out a little more
> 
> 3) And yes, I tried to find a explanation to why Petunia would say to a much younger Harry that James and Lily had died in a car crash while he survived, so why not have it actually been his maternal grandparents to be the victims there and Petunia used it about Lily and James as well because she did not want Harry to believe in magic?


	3. A strange feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a ancient lyre catches Harry's attention in a strange way

21 August, 1995, London: 

 

“Thanks a lot for allowing me to come along. I know that Mum means well, but I really want a break from her at times,” Ginny commented as the group of six people; Harry, Ron, Hermione, herself, Sirius and Lupin was walking towards the British Museum. 

 

“Even the most kind mothers in the world can become difficult at times,” Lupin smiled gently at her. Out of the six, he and Hermione had the best Muggle-looking clothing, though Harry was not far behind with some of the new clothing he and Sirius had managed to buy after watching the Star Wars movies and eaten their late dinner. Sirius had chosen the same clothing as last time, while Ron and Ginny had actually managed to get their hands on some currently fashionable Muggle clothes with some help from Lupin.

 

“My dad would not have been a safe person to be left inside here, I am not sure how well he would react,” Ron joked in good humour, making almost all of them smile. It was true, Mr Weasley was fascinated by Muggles in a mostly harmless way but at least Sirius and Lupin knew how to not draw attention to themselves, if one ignored that Lupin's clothes was a little worn here and there, mended to the best of his abilities. 

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

There was no problem with the tickets at the pay desk, and they followed the signs pointing towards the exhibition named:

 

**_Life in Anglo-Saxon times, a thousand years ago_ **

 

There was a lot of various items shown behind the protective glass. Swords and helmets found by archaeologists, everyday items like a pot to cook food in, models of how a house would have been built, life-size dolls showing the clothing of the period. 

 

“A thousand years ago...would not that be the time period Hogwarts is said to have been founded, right?” Harry asked when a memory from a history lesson in his second year surfaced to his mind for a moment. 

 

“Yes, the 990s, it is said. Sadly there is not much information about the early years of Hogwarts and the first students here, because literacy was not an access to all the social classes. High infant mortality happened both for the magical and muggle population, since they did not have access to modern healthcare or spells which was invented long afterwards. And everyone, not just the peasants, needed their surviving children to help the whole family survive from one year to the next. For example, Ron and Ginny, I do not think that your family would not be out of place there, if one took away the magic and manner of living. Seven surviving children would likely be viewed as a good number of surviving children, but twins like Fred and George would have a much less chance of survival than if they were born separate, a twin birth can be dangerous,” Lupin explained, using the chance to tell the teenagers some useful information they never seemed to learn in the History of Magic lessons at Hogwarts. Then again, a large part of the blame laid on Professor Binns since he only focused on the various Goblin Rebellions and Giant Wars, failing to mention much else to his bored, sleeping students in class. 

 

“Hogwarts should have a exhibition like this, then, if only to ensure that we actually learns something in history,” Ron suggested as he looked around with great interest on the everyday items and weapons, “I mean, if the Muggles could create all of this without magic a thousand years ago, surely Hogwarts could show the change of history like this instead?”

 

That was actually not a all too bad idea, given the complaints about professor Binns being so boring. Harry was about to ask something, when a faint sound made him stop walking. Music? But there was no one playing here, right?  

 

Without really being able to explain why, even to himself, Harry turned around and walked towards a table, where an old lyre was behind a protective glass. It looked so old, that might break at a simple touch. 

“Oh, there is Anglo-Saxon runes on that lyre,” Sirius suddenly spoke up, bringing Harry out of the half-trance. 

 

“You can read those, Sirius?” Harry wondered in surprise, as his godfather walked closer to him. 

 

“A little bit. I studied Ancient Runes while at Hogwarts, mainly to be able to translate old scrolls of magic which was written in runes, a lot of old magic are best used if you can translate the runes and discover what kind of abilities our ancestors had. Especially the very small group of Pure-blood names left that can honestly prove a lineage all the way back to the era of Hogwarts being founded or the first two generations after.” 

 

Looking closer, Sirius moved his lips as he tried to mentally translate the runes, barely visible in the old wood. 

 

“I think it reads...  **_Blood of my kin, gather together. Enemies of my blood, stay away from us. My line shall remain, hidden forever._ ** ” 

 

Again Harry felt something he could not explain, only that all suddenly it was like there was something he truly, really had to find. Like that his legs ached to run, but he knew not where to run. Only that he felt the same feelings he used to have back in childhood, back with the Dursleys in the years before finding out about Hogwarts; loneliness. 

 

And then….

 

When Harry slowly looked over his shoulder, he could have sworn on that there was a woman dressed in Anglo-Saxon clothing sitting behind him, playing on the exact same kind of lyre as she moved her lips in song, her eyes closed. Then, it was like she sensed his presence, and opened her eyes to meet him. In a moment which felt like eternity, Harry looked into the exact same green eyes as he had inherited from Lily. 

 

“Harry?”

 

A hand on his shoulder, Ginny's brown eyes blocking his view in a expression of concern. 

 

“Y-yes?”

 

“You spaced out all suddenly. Are you alright?” she asked, holding a hand towards his forehead to feel if he was warm from fever. Harry was barely aware of Sirius and Hermione disagreeing in the background about his translation of the runes on the lyre, Sirius insisting on that he had managed to read them correctly while Hermione claimed that the runes actually would be read a little different. Both Ron and Lupin tried to keep watch in case there was a risk of some magic revealing itself. 

 

“I...do not know, actually. Or even how to explain it….”

 

But Ginny seemed to understand that he really was lost for words.

 

“Maybe you need some fresh air outside. I think we all needs it, after being indoors and cleaning that old house just to make it possible to live there again.” 

 

Finally Lupin had enough of the silent bicking, and gently pushed Sirius and Hermione apart with his hands. 

 

“Let's finish this fine exhibition without quarrel which can annoy the other visitors and then find some lunch, alright? You can talk more about runes and how to translate them later when we returns home.”

 

That was a suggestion none of the four teenagers or Sirius could disagree with, so for now he and Hermione kept silent. Yet when they went towards the exit, Harry looked over his shoulder one last time against the lyre, and again he swore that he saw that woman just for a moment, like she had been a ghost, her green eyes haunting his mind.  

 


	4. Strange dreams and warnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is time to return to Hogwarts

Mr Weasley was very curious about what they had seen on British Museum, but agreed that due to his work and not being used to be around Muggles, he would only have drawn unwanted attention to himself. 

 

“Oh, right, the booklists and the other lists in the letters from Hogwarts have arrived today. It seems like there is something happening at the school this year, but hopefully more friendly than last year.”

 

At looking what it was about, the trio realized something special indeed:  

 

_ HOGWARTS: A THOUSAND-YEAR ANNIVERSARY _

 

_ Due to delaying events in the school years 1992-93, 1993-94 and 1994-95, this school year 1995-96 shall hold a anniversary of the school and its teaching of magic to generations of wizards and witches. This anniversary event of Hogwarts welcoming its first students in 993 by the legendary Founders, shall be present during September at Hogwarts, and be part of the studying for the current Hogwarts students that month.  _

 

_ To feel a connection with the Founders, the students shall not wear the school uniform during the first week of September, but rather the clothing of the 990s. The school shall serve the food of that time, the students shall test on what was common back then and shall visit a small exhibition showing the difference between present and past, in a chamber near the Great Hall.   _

 

“Delaying events...if one can call the Chamber of Secrets, Sirius escaping from Azkaban and the Triwizard Tournament  **_delaying events_ ** …” Harry muttered, looking up from his letter. Looking at Ron and Hermione, they seemed to share his thoughts about that. Sirius looked a little ashamed.

 

“Sorry about the third year for you, kids, but at least you know the reason now.” 

 

Harry nodded, hoping that outside all this with Voldemort having returned and that damned campaign to discredit both Dumbledore and Harry himself about the truth, things would be a less eventful school year for once.

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

  
  


Nightmares about Voldemort and what had happened in the graveyard was one thing, but this night along with that strange corridor with a locked door, but tonight Harry had a very strange dream: 

 

_ A hooded person sitting with his back against Harry, but he did not feel any danger despite that he did not have his wand ready for defense. Rather, that this was a person he knew to not attack him. As if this was a person he somehow knew, even when he had never seen the man before.    _

 

_ “Pine wood for the base. My late wife's wand of rowan wood, as the core among all the pine, to make the defensive charms especially strong and difficult to break…” _

 

_ It seemed like the other person was building something, a magical item for protection. Whatever it was, it felt like a powerful item, for Harry could feel some kind of power from there all the way to where he stood. _

  
  


“....Harry, wake up! Breakfast is soon done.” 

 

It was Ron who woke him up. Although it was for a good reason, today was September First and they would travel back to Hogwarts to start a new school year. Missing the Hogwarts Express would be a real pain, no need to repeat what had happened at the start of their Second Year. It had been enough trouble with Dobby and everything related to the Chamber of Secrets.

  
  
  


When Harry came down the stairs after dressing up, Kreacher was heard muttering unpleasant words about the various people in the house again: 

 

“Unclean blood...unworthy of the magic they have… descendants of worthless Squibs, having the filthy blood of Muggles in their veins...”

 

The last part was aimed not only towards Hermione, but also Lily Potter, that Harry could understand and he felt his anger boil up inside him. Only that, for a short moment right after, Harry felt as if someone behind him was looking straight thought him and sending a truly venomous chilly look against Kreacher. The house-elf seemed to have a similar feeling of the indoor temperature dropping very dramatically fast as well, given the look of terror he suddenly had on his face. 

 

“Kreacher was wrong...will not insult the guests or the master again...will serve them better…” 

 

The room temperature seemed to raise again and Kreacher almost fled towards the kitchen in terror, but when Harry looked around over his shoulder, there was no one behind him. Sirius had not said anything about ghosts in his old childhood home and there was no portraits on the walls here, so what on earth had happened right now?

 

“Harry, are you coming to breakfast or not?” 

 

He could not waste time, they would leave soon. 

 

“Sirius...could you and Lupin...maybe find out more about my maternal grandparents if you get a chance at some point? At least, I want to know where Mom came from, if I might even have more relatives than the Dursleys. I can research the Potter family myself at Hogwarts, but mom's side of the family is more difficult as she was Muggle-born.”

 

His godfather smiled kindly at him. 

 

“Of course, Harry. Gives me a legal reason to leave the house once in a while as well. I will do my best.”

 

With that promise, Harry felt a little better. 

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

Later at King's Cross Station, Platform 9¾: 

 

Mr and Mrs Weasley had learnt a lesson from the chaos three years prior, given what had happened later that school year, and this time they were not the only adults to bring all the Hogwarts students in the family, Harry and Hermione to the Hogwarts Express. Because they did not know what Voldemort might be planning, some of the members in the Order of the Phoenix had came along as a guard, just in case of a attack from the Death Eaters. 

 

“Come on, get onboard so we know that you all are on the train now!”

 

Well, there was a few familiar faces in the crowd of Hogwarts students and their parents.

 

“Hey, Mr Malfoy! You did not need to give me that second-hand  **_díary_ ** three years ago, 1943 was way out of date to use!” Ginny suddenly called out aloud, and Lucius Malfoy actually twitched at the mention of what had happened three years ago. 

 

Of course, Ginny's calling did not go without attention. 

 

“ _ Lucius Abraxas Malfoy! _ What have I told you about treating the Weasley family with such disrespect simply because of their financial state and friendship with Muggle-related people!? You are a grown up man and Head of the Malfoy family, not a school boy at Hogwarts anymore!“ a scandalized, female voice suddenly called out behind them. A well-dressed older witch, most likely somewhere in her late sixties, came forwards towards where Lucius and Draco was standing, using her wand to gently push people aside with magic so she got some free space. 

 

“Livia Malfoy neé Abbott, widow of the late Abraxas Malfoy,” Mr Weasley hurried to explain to Harry and Hermione in a low whisper, as they all enjoyed the sight of Lucius being scolded by his own mother like that in front of everyone to watch it happen.  

 

“But Grandmother, they are involved with Mudbl…!” 

 

The widowed Mrs Malfoy was very quick to silent her only grandson with a hit on the skin from her walking stick. Then she spoke in a frosty tone, with a glare towards her own son: 

 

“I will  _ not _ hear that filthy word from your lips, Draco,  _ not in my presence. _ The Headmaster of Hogwarts himself was born to a Muggle-born mother, so keep your tongue in control at Hogwarts or you will never find a future bride outside those families who are already related to the Malfoy family in some degree by blood or marriage in previous generations! We need new blood by your marriage or the we might share the fate of the House of Gaunt, too many marriages between cousins and too little new blood, to the point of ending up  **_extinct_ ** in the male line!”

 

It seemed like Livia Malfoy neé Abbott was one of those rare older Pure-blood people who did not view only her fellow Pure-Blood magical families as suitable for marrying, and clearly did not think the behavior of her grandson as acceptable.    

 

“I like her already. And it is fun to see Mr Malfoy having a reminder of that his social status can not have him get away with everything,” Harry laughed, and Ron was pleased as well. The joyful moment ended as Livia literally used her walking stick to push Draco in the back so he would board the Hogwarts Express.  

 

Sirius, who had came along in his Animagus form, jumped up and managed to place something in Harry's hand just before Mrs Weasley closed the train door after him. It was a envelope, with a photo of two adults and a handwritten note inside: 

 

_ Remus had a photo of your grandparents in a old album of us from Hogwarts, Lily once requested him to keep that photo safe just in case something happened. They are a few years younger in the photo than at their deaths, since it was taken by Lily when she was in the same age as you are now. Sirius  _

 

It was a little hard to see all the details, but Harry could see that both Lily and himself had inherited the same green eyes from Eleanor, her hair a nice brown colour while Anthony was more of a strawberry blonde with more common blue eyes. 

 

“Thank you!” Harry managed to call to Sirius through the open window as the train started to move.   

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

As the Hogwarts Express left London to take the students to Hogwarts and they had enjoyed a few sandwiches from Mrs Weasley to eat as a snack, Hermione started to look through a few books in her bag. 

 

“House of Gaunt...where did I read that name somewhere…”

 

“House of Gaunt?” Harry wondered in confusion, not recognizing that name from any names of the students in their year. It was Ron who cleared things up: 

 

“A Pure-blood family which went extinct in the male line somewhere in the 1940s, because of too many marriages between cousins to keep their blood pure. If I remember right, the last male of that House ended up in Azkaban for murder on Muggles and he did not leave any wife or children behind, but I do not know if there was any sisters or brothers to that lunatic. The House of Gaunt was said to be descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself.” 

 

“Here it was! The story about the Slytherin family and what is called the  _ Great Tragedy of the Slytherin family _ in history!” 

 

Hermione opened the history book named Magical family trees, to show them what she had been looking for. Ron and Harry took a closer look together. 

 

“So the House of Gaunt basically descended from the only grandchild of Salazar though his daughter and managed to live on for nearly nine hundred years?”

 

That was not something they had been told in History of Magic, for sure, with all the focus on Goblin wars and all that boring stuff. Perhaps the other Founders had descendants in the present day as well?

 

“Godric Gryffindor was married, but sadly all his known descendants died out during the Black Death between 1348 and 1350, the last few of his blood was healers and tried to help Muggles during that horrible plague, getting infected themselves and they had spent too much of their strength to help the non-magical population of England to have any resistance left.” 

 

Helga Hufflepuff had no direct descendants left, but rumours said that the Smith family was related to the Hufflepuff family in some way through marriage. Rowena Ravenclaw was the first of the four founders to die, and her only child, a daughter named Helena Ravenclaw, had never left any descendants behind as she had died before marrying.     

 

“Still, would it not be awesome to find out where your magic may be from originally, Hermione?” Ron wondered, and she thought it over for a little bit. 

 

“The tricky thing is, that we Muggle-borns are distant descendants of Squibs and in the last commoners often could not read or write, so often there is no written records outside maybe a mention of the date of birth, marriage and death. Schools were not free until 1891, up until then children had to pay to go to school and often poor families simply could not afford it, so their children could only learn a little at Sunday schools which were run by churches.”

 

Somehow, they ended up talking about how education was something taken for granted those days and Ron did actually show some interest. Which Hermione noticed, and, of course asked why.  

 

“This summer I have been thinking of how dangerous You-Know-Who must be for both the Wizarding world and the Muggle world, so I want to try to learn more about history between magical and non-magic people...I mean, what if there is a attack on some Muggles which we could have prevented by better communication?”

 

Hermione did not say it, but she was moved by how thoughtful Ron proved himself with those words. Perhaps there was a chance of him becoming less childish, now when he had the responsibility of being a Perfect. Maybe that was what he needed, a role which he had to take seriously. 

 

Harry smiled, before looking again at the photo of his grandparents. He could recognize them now from the Mirror of Erised, from when he first had seen his parents and other family members he had never seen in life, they had been standing behind Lily if he could remember right. But when he turned the photo over to see if Lily had written down the date when she had taken this photo of her parents only little over five years left before they died, he saw a faded, handwritten text on the back of the photo: 

 

_ My line shall remain, hidden forever _

 

A strange feeling came over Harry when he recalled almost the exact words on that lyre on British Museum. Why did those words keep showing up lately? Was they a warning of some kind, or just pure coincidence?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon the wife of Abraxas are not named, but since the Malfoy family have forenames in Latin, a few of them Roman names, I chose the name Livia for her, after the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus. 
> 
> Abbott is the surname of a wizarding family. As one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, they were a pure-blood family up until at least the 1930s, but recent generations of Abbotts seems to have married Muggles and/or Muggle-borns or half-bloods, as Hannah Abbott is a half-blood 
> 
> I wanted to give a logical reason to why only Salazar is mentioned to have descendants left until the 20th century, so why not have the Black Death be the killing blow to the possibly known descendants of Godric? Helena Ravenclaw is not mentioned as being married, so the Ravenclaw family might have died out with her if she had no siblings and we have no details about Helga having children or if any modern-day claimed relatives actually comes from a side-line and not Helga herself


	5. Powerful music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first week back at Hogwarts are less peaceful than what Harry would like

Ignoring the fight between Harry and Seamus in the evening about whatever Voldemort really had returned or not, the first night back at Hogwarts was somewhat peaceful.  

 

“At last Ron, Neville and Dean believes me….”

 

That was a small comfort, but it still stung to feel how all this was similar to his second year, when the rumors had said that he was the Heir of Slytherin, just because he could speak Parseltongue as a result of Voldemort somehow transferred some of his powers to him at that first attempt to kill him that night as Lily and James Potter was murdered. 

 

Back then, it had taken Hermione to be petrified by the Basilisk to make the students realise how wrong those rumours was. Would it happen again, with a innocent person being killed in a manner that could not be declared as a accident or something similar? 

  


Again Harry felt himself wander in dreams once he had fallen asleep, but not of the corridor or the graveyard:  

 

_Widespread sea of grass no matter which season it was, even when it was hidden below the snows of winter. The laughing of children as they played outside the small village in their free time._

 

_Then, a number of the children slowly started to vanish, often without a trace, in general when sent out on errands just outside the village. Sometimes their peers or siblings had been a strange cloaked person suddenly show up being the missing child and then vanish after grabbing them. The village priest speaking of the heathens from the northwests in their boats with the heads of dragons, worshipping the Devil and desiring the blood of Christians as sacrifice_

 

_And then strange lights in the middle of the day, just after that the harvest had been brought in, lights which Harry realized to be from cast Disarming Charms and Stunning Spells, hitting many of the villages. Screams of terror and anger, the men grabbing their weapons and rushing to attack the few wizards and witches as the wives tried to gather their children together for safety._

 

_“Modur! Feder!!”_

 

_The targets for the kidnapping seemed to be some of the older children, and it was in growing horror as Harry understood that they had to be around the age of eleven, the age when they would start Hogwarts. Was this how the first Muggle-born students had came to Hogwarts, watching their parents be attacked and then dragged off against their will?_

 

_Once the attack was over, screams of grief and anger was heard as the villagers realized that some of their children indeed had been taken despite what they had done to try and prevent it? They had realized a pattern, the kidnappings always happening after the harvest in the last days of August and first days of September, and that children aged between ten and twelve was the targets. At least two families had lost a son or daughter in the kidnappning this year, after that there had been no attack in the past three years. Why was it always the children in that age who was taken?_

 

_The priest could not offer a true answer for that, and it was clear that he hated to see the people under his care suffer the loss of a child in a such unnatural manner. Death in young age was nothing strange, but to see your own child being taken away like this...._   

  


Harry awoke in the middle of night, finding himself crying without understanding why at first. That dream had been so real, that he almost had felt as if he had been there in real life as the attack had happened. One thing was for sure: not all Muggle-borns had been delighted to hear about magic and that they could do it, not with a such witness of what it could do to their non-magical relatives and then taken away from their family. 

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

On September 2th, when they had woken up in the Fifth Years Boys' Dormitory, the five teenage boys found that something new had been laid neatly at the end of their beds: 

 

“Wow, they did not joke about that we was to wear different clothing during the first week this year.” 

 

While keeping their modern underwear, there was a undershirt with long sleeves to start with. Woollen trousers, held up with a belt threaded through loops. A red tunic was then pulled over the head, and reached down to the knees, decorated at the wrists, neck and hem, and was long-sleeved but still fairly tight-fitting between elbow and wrist. A belt was worn at the waist, with a decorated buckle and strap-end. The other clothes was not dyed in any form outside a small G in yellow thread sewn on where they normally had their school House emblem, and the first letters in their given name and surname. At least they would keep their black plain robes over it all. 

 

“Oh!” Neville said as he tripped forwards after trying to tie the shoes, made from a single piece of leather but with a extra piece added in the bottom to form a sole. He was not the only one having some trouble with the laces.  

  


On the way to the Great Hall, Hermione and Ginny arrived. They were both dressed a plain dress with long sleeves, with one red overdress as a sign of them being in Gryffindor. 

 

“Wow, talk about that the clothing could be colourful a thousand years ago as well. But they seems to be muted, at least against the modern clothes.” 

 

And that was a invitation for Hermione to explain the difference of how clothes and fabrics had been dyed before the mid-19 century. 

 

“Merlin, Hermione, how many books in various subjects have you truly read under your life? Surely you can not have tried those which was too hard to read for a child?” Ron had to ask in disbelief. 

 

“I asked a older cousin of mine to read out aloud and _translate_ the words for me into those I could understand,” Hermione responded in pride, and that was something they could agree to be the most logical way of action. 

 

“Oh, look. _Someone_ had to be dressed up in finer fabrics than the others,” Ginny whispered with a glare towards Draco Malfoy, who wore the same types of clothes like Harry and Ron, but it was all done in silk. He almost seemed like a peacock, showing off the wealth of his family like that. 

 

“Silk was not common in Anglo-Saxon times, right?” Harry breathed to Hermione, who shook her head in response as they went towards the Great Hall to have their breakfast. That gladded Harry, knowing that Malfoy would stick out like a sore thumb if he ever found himself in a such place.  

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

So far, the first school day was more or less what Harry had expected after knowing that the Ministry tried to paint him as a liar about Voldemort returning, mainly for the mistrust Harry felt from many of the other students and the usual comments from Malfoy and his gang. Snape was as unpleasant as normal, so that was nothing new. 

 

He tried to focus on what the teachers was telling of the times when Hogwarts had started, if he wanted to be a Auror as his future work Harry had to become better at studying and gathering information. As a result, he actually started to make a separate list on the information the teacher told at the moment.  

 

“Why a Auror of all work to choose in the future? They are among the elite of the people working at the Ministry, but their work are also very dangerous. You saw the injuries Mad-Eye Moody as a result,” Ron whispered in the middle of one lesson, holding up his book in front of his face so they could talk without being seen.  

 

“ _I want to prevent that other children will lose my parents as I did. And if we can prevent other Dark Wizards like Voldemort to gain power early, a lot of lives could be saved,_ ” Harry responded in the same low whisper, which Ron seemed to understand as a very good reason for a such work choice. 

  


The first DADA lesson this year went….poorly, even by the standards of the earlier teachers Harry had in that subject. Something about Umbridge had triggered his loathing of her already at the trial in August and he was not happy to hear her insist on what the Ministry tried to do at Hogwarts. 

 

And his detention was not made better by that black quill she told him to just to write with on the parchment. The words _I must not tell lies_ was carved into the back of his hand, like a mockery of that he was telling the truth and yet was not believed.  

 

But something strange happened during the detention. A knock on the door, despite that it was pretty late. 

 

“Who is out this late….” 

 

Only that, when Umbridge opened the door to her office, something flew into the office in high speed and missed her face with only a few centimeters in closeness. Instead, several of the kitten-themed plates on the wall was smashed into tiny pieces and Harry quickly threw himself down on the floor, the mysterious item punctured into the wall itself. 

 

“A... _horseshoe?!_ ” Umbridge said in disbelief. Indeed it was a horseshoe of iron there in the wall, and Harry could guess that by the high speed, it could have knocked someone out. But her words seemed to make the magic react, for suddenly the horseshoe was loose again and flew around the office, breaking things randomly, giving her no time to say a spell to stop it. 

“I will be back tomorrow, professor!” Harry managed to say, crawling out from the office by recalling how the fire training in his Muggle primary school had been taught by the teachers if the students found themselves in a smoke-filled classroom or school corridor.  

  


One of the few good things during the second school day, knowing that he had detention again, was that Harry got a letter from Sirius and Lupin with some news about his maternal family. 

 

_Dear Harry_

 

_We have just started on finding out more about your grandparents, but there was some information we found in the town here they lived with both their daughters, called Cokeworth._

 

_To our great luck when we traveled there yesterday, there was some local ladies in their older years who still recalled Eleanor and Anthony Evans. It seems like your grandmother had a great talent for music, and often played in the church on Sundays and when it was other holidays. Anthony worked in a office close to the textile factories._

 

_It seems that your grandparents moved to Cokeworth from London soon after marrying, since your aunt Petunia was born about a year after their wedding and your mother arriving the following year._

 

_Due to that we needs to be careful about me not being found out, we have to do this research in steps, but we will ensure that we will find out more information._

 

_With great love_

 

_Sirius and Remus_

 

Harry thought for a moment, because the name of that town sounded a little familiar, then it clicked in his memory. Cokeworth was the name of the town where uncle Vernon had stopped at that hotel four years ago, in his desperate attempts to prevent the Hogwarts letters from finding their way to him and reveal that he did actually have magical powers. 

 

“A hundred letters with my name on...looking back, I feel sorry for the hotel staff, who must have been very confused over the huge amount of letters meant to a almost eleven-year-old boy…” 

 

That was a story the Weasleys and Hermione should get a good laugh from, especially the part where Hagrid had shown up in the middle of the night. At his side, Hermione frowned over something she read about in the muggle newspaper sent from her parents.  

  


However, the horseshoe was not the only strange thing happening around Harry that week. The next morning, he asked Fred and George if they knew anything about it, and to his surprise, they had nothing to do with the horseshoe, though they still thanked him for mentioning it. 

 

Umbridge turned out to not be the only person who was attacked out of the blue by the horseshoe, Snape found himself with a broken nose after being his classical _charming_ self against Harry, and suddenly the Portions teacher had his face slammed down in his desk in front of the whole class, the same horseshoe being the heavy item to hit his head from behind.  

 

“ **_Get out!_ **” he growled at the students, daring them to mention this outside the classroom. Harry and Ron was only happy to have the lesson cut short and leaving early, while Hermione were more worried about how that would affect their studies later that year. 

 

“Oh, come on, Hermione, let us have some fun.” 

  


In fact, there was other students who soon mentioned similar cases to the teachers, about a flying horseshoe showing up out of nowhere and hitting people, especially those who said less than pleasant things about Harry Potter. According to what Harry heard, Draco Malfoy was one of the students who was hit by said horseshoe several times over a day, ending up in the hospital wing after one brutal hit straight on his mouth. 

 

And even if the teachers did a fair attempt of a interrogation about finding out who that had enchanted the horseshoe, with the Weasley twins being among the students questioned about it, but there was a dead end, much to the confusion and not so little anger for certain teachers in the staff. 

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

One of the things the trio wanted to see once the Founders-themed week was over, was a exhibition close to the Great Hall. Because of that they needed to fix their homework first, they had to wait until after the school lessons. 

 

“Hey, Hermione...did you not mention this about the descendants of Godric Gryffindor, on the train?” 

 

At the moment they were in the library, researching for a “personal thoughts-report” on the Founders that was to be delivered to one of the teachers at the end of the first school week. 

 

“Yes, they all died in the Black Death, that is right.” 

 

Apparently had the Anglo-Saxon exhibition at the British Museum raised Ron's interest in history, for he was actually doing the work on the report all by himself without needing her help. Harry was borrowing another book from the pile beside Hermione for his part of the family of Salazar Slytherin. 

 

“Hm?” 

 

The book was very ancient and had to be handled with great care, but there was a small detail Harry had not read in the other history books: 

 

_Being a family of respected Portions-makers, the Slytherin family sometimes would use lead cauldrons for when their service was requested in more questionable political makings. It is even said that they might have used lead to poison the English King of the time, called Edward the Martyr, in March 978 because he was not his father's acknowledged heir despite being the eldest son of Edgar the Peaceful. The leadership of England was contested, with some supporting Edward's claim to be king and others supporting his younger half-brother Æthelred the Unready, recognized as a legitimate son of Edgar._

 

Lead...lead, what had his muggle teachers said about it? 

 

“Hermione, lead is poisonous, right? It would not be the best metal used for cauldrons, given that I have never seen it for sale.”

 

“Yes, it is true that lead is poisonous. I have read about theories that the Roman Empire collapsed because of that lead was used in aqueducts, water pipes, household implements and medicine. Even if it would be used only rarely, if the Slytherin family had no means of protecting themselves against the lead…” 

 

Even if it was not exactly what had happened, Harry still wrote down the mention of possible lead poisoning in the Slytherin family due to using lead cauldrons, along with the possibility that by marrying only other Pure-blood families, they ended up not gaining enough new blood over the generations to avoid inbreeding. Just in case, he also checked up the Gaunt family to see roughly when they went extinct. He saw that the male line was marked as extinct after 1943, but as Hermione had said on the train, it did not mean exactly that was the date when the last male of the family, named Morfin Gaunt, had died, only that he never had been able to marry or have children due to spending the rest of his life in Azkaban for murdering a Muggle family in 1943. There was a short mention of a daughter, Merope Gaunt, who had died in 1926 at only nineteen years of age, but there was no mention of a husband for her, so Harry did not found it very likely that she had married and had children at a such young age.    

  


Finally they could see the exhibition. Neville also came along, and Ginny was already there with her friend Luna Lovegood. Even in the Anglo-Saxon clothes dyed in the Ravenclaw colours, she still managed to have that permanently surprised look of hers, and even had used her wand as a hairpin to set her dirty blonde hair up in a messy bun. 

 

“It is funny, I think, how the Ministry deny this **_returning danger_ ** for people by making you seem like a liar and how they will be the ones to end up looking foolish in the longer run when evidence comes up as a counter-attack on what they say. The Minister will lose the trust people have in him, but I also hope that it will not be at the cost of innocent lives being lost before the truth is revealed,” Luna commented in that brutal honesty of hers. Harry realized that she had used a code name for Voldemort, to both show her support for him and also to mention how idiotic it was to deny the truth. 

 

“Thank you.” 

 

And then the good mood was ruined by a most unwelcome voice: 

 

“Look, the trio of worthlessness and another pack of losers.” 

 

Great, Malfoy had shown up, along with Crabbe and Goyle. Did they have nothing else to do than acting as the magical version of Dudley and his gang?

 

“That is rich, coming from someone who always claim that I will be beaten in Quidditch but always ends up being the one losing,” Harry said, and Malfoy face turned red in embarrassment at the reminder.

 

“All of you still look like the peasants you would have been, had you been born a thousand years ago.” 

 

“And silk was not common in that period, so you would be the one looking out of place,” Luna spoke up, having removed her wand so her hair was loose again. She seemed to be on guard for a possible fight, which seemed very likely the more time that was spent here. Malfoy snorted.

 

“The Malfoy family was already a magical family long before the Founders.” 

“And what did your grandmother say there at the train station so everyone could hear? That you need to marry a wife who brings in new blood to avoid the amount of inbreeding to the point of dying out?” 

 

“As if I will marry anyone with the filthy blood of Muggles like Granger, Potter! A Mudblood like your mother is only a dishonor to the Wizarding world, born from Squibs that should have been killed at the reveal of that they have no magic!” 

 

“ **_YOU WILL NOT SPEAK LIKE THAT ABOUT MY MOM!!_ ** _Petrificus Totalus!_ ” 

 

As Harry got a direct hit on Malfoy, the Slytherin student found his arms snapped to his sides as his legs sprang together. His whole body rigid, he swayed where he stood and then fell flat over on his back, with his jaws  jammed together so he couldn't speak. 

 

Unfortunately Crabbe and Goyle clearly had been expecting a fight of some kind, for they drew their own wands and a three-way duel started between the eight students. And with all the spells flying around in every direction as they all tried to avoid getting hit, the protective glass of the exhibition was smashed into pieces. 

 

“ _Immobulus!_ ” 

 

By using the Freezing Charm, Hermione managed to avoid that they could be harmed by the glass shards falling down on the floor. But now Malfoy had been freed and could take part of the duel too. 

 

“ _Bombarda!_ ”

 

The explosion had to be loud enough to gain the attention of the teachers, which would land them all in big trouble. When Harry used the Shield charm to block any spells coming against him, one of the items fell out on the floor in the middle between them all. A lyre, ancient-looking and with faded runes in the wood. 

 

“Harry...that is the lyre from British Museum, it was stolen only a few days after our visit there!” 

 

“What?” 

 

But Harry did not get enough time to ask, for in the following moment there was a sound of lyre music being played over the duel, the strings moving by themselves. A comforting, yet warning sound. And now several of the old daggers and swords was lifted from their places as the music played, hoving in the air above them. 

 

“As if some rusty iron pieces will help you out…” 

 

But Malfoy did not get to finish whatever he planned to say, for a now rather familiar horseshoe hit both Crabbe and Goyle across their hands so their wands landed pretty far away from the owners, and then the daggers and swords fell down on the three Slytherins.

 

Malfoy avoided injuries by using his wands, but the other two was less lucky and learned the hard way just how painful a sword cut was to be given. And then the blood was raised to the stone wall beside them…

 

Ginny had grown pale in terror, and Ron realized why when words was formed on the wall and she whispered: 

 

“Riddle... _diary_ …!” 

 

“Ginny, get the teachers!” he called, and the only Weasley daughter was only too happy to obey given what horrible memories she just had been reminded of. Luna followed Ginny to the door, then tried to freeze the swords to avoid that the two Slytherin students could possibly be killed for real. 

“Look, something is forming out of the lyre!” 

 

The same woman in Anglo-Saxon clothing that Harry had imagined in British Museum. Looking around, she fixed her eyes on a now terrified Malfoy and pointed at him with a ghostly finger, saying something none of them could understand due to modern English being a very different language than the one she had spoken, but somehow Harry realized that it must the runes on the lyre: 

 

**_Blood of my kin, gather together. Enemies of my blood, stay away from us. My line shall remain, hidden forever._ **

 

And then the lyre began to glow with a golden light, the strings still being played as by invisible fingers. Everyone could feel the magic in the light, a truly powerful one. 

 

“Oh no…” 

 

Something wasn't right. In fact, the trio and Malfoy was getting pulled towards the lyre, as if caught by a wind strong enough to make them lose their footing, Neville and Luna only avoiding it due to taking cover behind two pillar. 

 

“Harry Potter!” 

 

It was professor McGonagall who came running with Ginny right behind, but she was not sounding angry, rather far more alarmed over what seemed to be happening with her students. 

 

“Watch out, this is powerful magic!” Hermione warned, while Malfoy now had his feet very close to the mysterious light around the lyre, and desperately tried to grab for anything that could prevent him from coming closer. Harry did not think, he just acted and threw a counterspell against the lyre:  

 

“ _Offero!_ ”

 

That turned out to be a massive mistake, for now the light turned bright enough to almost be blinding. 

 

“No….no, no, nooooooo!” 

 

With a echoing scream Malfoy was pulled into the light, and he vanished into the lyre. 

 

“Run!” 

 

Even as they tried to help each other, or running over to the door together, all three of Harry, Ron and Hermione was forcefully pulled into the light as well when it spread out enough to cover the whole chamber. 

 

As the blinding light died out and the lyre looked normal again, the only two persons left was the unconscious Crabbe and Goyle on the floor, both havíng several wounds from the swords. 

 

Professor McGonagall realized that this was not a normal situation, not at all. Students could not vanish into the thin air… 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Anglo-Saxons had some natural dyes for their clothes: woad for blue, ochre for brown and orange, madder for colours from red to yellow, green from seaweeds. Black was rare, as it was a difficult colour to obtain.
> 
> And yes, it is meant as a in-story irony of that Harry is finding the name of Voldemort's maternal family and even the exact year as Merope died, but does not link it directly to the events in the graveyard or the Chamber of Secrets because at the time of his fifth school year, Harry does not know the name of the Pure-blood family that Merope came from, he is aware of Voldemort being a Half-blood with a Muggle father, but never heard about his mother from the 16-year-old Tom Riddle's Horcrux in the diary

**Author's Note:**

> Cearo, Rinc and Sunniva are real names from the Anglo-Saxon period, which I used for Salazar's family in another story of mine that is is not posted online


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